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As she thought of other places, Leia pondered how Yoda had trained Luke on the swampy planet of Dagobah, a place completely devoid of other intelligent life. Her brother would want someplace similar for his own trainees.

Okay, what about Dagobah itself? she thought, putting a fingertip on her lower lip. The swamps had hidden Yoda for centuries, and it was certainly isolated from the mainstream of galactic traffic … but Dagobah had no appropriate facilities either. They would have to erect an academy from scratch. Mobilizing the New Republic construction forces, Leia could get the job done in short order—but she wasn’t sure that was the right answer. Somehow she felt the right site would jump out at her. Because the restoration of the Jedi Knights meant so much, Luke would be very selective about the proper site. She just hadn’t found it yet.

The message center buzzed. Again. Though it was barely midmorning, she had already lost count of the interruptions. With a sigh Leia answered it, seeing the image of another minor functionary take shape in the central focus.

“Minister Organa Solo,” the functionary said, “I’m sorry to call you at home, but we need you to decide on a meal selection for the Bimmini banquet. The deadline is today. The choices are grazer fillets with tart sauce, nerf medallions with sweet fungi, broiled dewback—”

“I’ll take the nerf medallions. Thank you!” She switched off the receiver, then calmed herself before returning to the images of the planets.

In the bedchambers Jacen burst into loud sobs, joined in a moment by his sister. Threepio cooed sounds of consolation, then began another one of his lullabies, which set them to crying louder. Part of Leia wanted to hurry into the children’s room to see what was the matter, while another part of her just wanted to seal their door so she could have a little more quiet.

On the morning after the reception at the Skydome Botanical Gardens, both children had come down with a cold. Slight fever, congestion, and general crankiness—the type of frequent minor illness the twins would no doubt suffer for another few years—but Leia didn’t want to just abandon them to the care of Threepio.

After some refresher programming, the protocol droid had proved himself capable of caring for the two-year-olds. But Leia felt a defensiveness in herself. She was their mother; while it was a new set of responsibilities for her, Leia did not want a droid to watch them all the time, no matter how competent his programming. The children had already spent so much of their lives with Winter that Leia wanted to make up for lost time—if her political duties would only give her the chance!

Before she could call up the file on another planet to consider, the message center buzzed again. “What is it?” she said, mustering every scrap of civility she still possessed. She did not recognize the alien administrator in the image.

“Ah, Minister Organa Solo, I am calling from the office of the deputy assistant minister of industry. I was told you might be able to offer a suggestion about a type of music that would be appropriate to play during the arrival of the Ishi Tib delegate?”

For a moment Leia reconsidered her time as a prisoner of Jabba the Hutt. At least the sluglike crime lord had not required her to do anything more than sit there and look beautiful.…

Before she finished signing off, a message came in from Admiral Ackbar. Though she liked the Calamarian admiral, she found it difficult to keep her temper from boiling. How was she supposed to get anything done with all these interruptions?

“Hello, Admiral—can I help you quickly? I’m in the middle of a rather large project right now.”

Ackbar nodded graciously, swiveling his big fish eyes to the front in a gesture of courtesy. “Of course, Leia. I apologize for the interruption, but I’d like to solicit your comments on the speech I have just written. As you remember, I am giving it before the Cabinet tomorrow, and you agreed to provide me with data on the rezoning of embassy sectors in the devastated